Hybrid

A hybrid is the genetically manipulated product of alien and humanDNA as part of the colonization project run by the Syndicate. Some humans became hybrids via gene therapy while others were conceived through a hybridization process.

When the Syndicate concluded a sinister alliance with the alien colonists in 1973, an alien fetus was given to them in exchange for family members to be used as test subjects. This fetus granted them access to alien DNA and allowed them to create a hybrid race between man and alien, paving the way for colonization. A scientific method was also taught so they could produce successful specimens; the Syndicate had previously invited Nazi and Japanese scientists to participate in early experiments using alien DNA taken from corpses found at the Roswell crash site in New Mexico with disastrous results. The alliance implied that Syndicate members and their families would be spared as they became hybrids and this hybrid race would become the colonists’ slave race. But the Syndicate didn’t simply agree to this; they secretly planned to elaborate a vaccine against the black oil so they could resist the hegemony. Based on the work of Russian geneticists who had found an interesting anomaly in identical twins, the Syndicate’s scientists managed to create healthy hybrid clone series. These clones had a human appearance so they could easily blend in, but had inherited the colonists’ caustic blood and some of their particular abilities such as breathing underwater and fast healing of the wounds. These attributes made them practically indestructible and they could only be killed using a weapon or an alien stiletto inserted at the base of the skull, the colonist race’s only vulnerable point. Some of these clones were produced using female abductees’ ova, others using human fetuses obtained in abortion clinics where Syndicate researchers worked. The embryo would grow in a tank filled with a greenish amniotic fluid until it had reached the desired development stage for the task assigned to the hybrid.

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Experiments and Failures

Patients from the Hansen's Disease Research Facility in West Virginia were among the first to be experimented on with gene therapy by Japanese scientists meaning to turn them into hybrids. The alien DNA used had been taken from alien corpses found at the Roswell crash site in New Mexico. The majority of these patients were not lepers, as the facility’s name suggests, but homeless or insane individuals brought there after receiving treatments that modified their physiognomy, giving them a half-alien, half-human appearance and severe burns all over their bodies. These failed hybrids were eliminated and piled up in mass graves by the Syndicate. Similar experiments were conducted by Nazi scientists with the same results; the “merchandise” hybrids were then locked up in boxcars and asphyxiated with cyanide. These fruitless attempts nevertheless revealed that hybrids were immune to the black oil virus.

Another hybridization experiment by gene therapy was the Bellefleur experiment conducted in Oregon in the early 1990’s. Teenagers received injections on their lower back and a small communication device was inserted in their nasal cavity. Many of the students were found dead in a forest where they had gathered to celebrate their graduation. After exhuming one of the students long after his death for a second autopsy, agent Dana Scully found that his morphology had changed post-mortem and taken a half-alien, half-human appearance. Billy Miles, one of the students who had survived, was left in a vegetative state, and another named Peggy O'Dell was left paralysed in her lower body, though it was revealed that these students would get back to their normal functions when the communication device was activated and led them where they had to go.

Doctor Secare breathing underwater.

In 1994, a certain Doctor Terrance Allen Berube who was conducting cancer research in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was unknowingly used by the Syndicate to attempt gene therapy hybridization as a form of cancer treatment. One of his ill colleagues, Doctor William Secare, agreed to be tested; the scientist was healed from his cancer but also became a hybrid, showing inhuman abilities such as breathing underwater and remarkably fast healing of the wounds. His blood also took on a green tint and became toxic to humans. But as the Syndicate found that the project was progressing too rapidly and out of its control, it had the two doctors assassinated, Doctor Berube via strangulation disguised as suicide, and Doctor Secare with a gunshot wound at the back of the neck, the hybrids' only vulnerable point. Five other cancer patients such as Doctor Secare were also treated in a laboratory built into a warehouse named Zeus Storage where they were undergoing hybridization in large tanks filled with a greenish fluid. These men were also killed and the installation removed to eliminate evidence.

Purity Control, the alien DNA-based substance found in Doctor Berube's laboratory was also used in the Delta Glen, Wisconsin area by Doctor Larson on his young patients as well as on the cattle fed to the town's population. Older residents began noticing aggressivity in the people who had developed a "dog eat dog" attitude towards each other. Seven cases of rape were perpetrated by high school boys in a short period. Beth Kane, the mother of one of the inoculated young men claimed that her son was never sick a single day in his life, as he had developed the immunity of hybrids. The Church of the Red Museum, a local vegetarian cult founded by a California doctor named Richard Odin were never in any contact with the substance either from eating the meat or from Doctor Larson's inoculations and were unknowingly used as a control group to observe the differences with the test subjects. When the FBI came to investigate, the Crew Cut Man was sent to kill the people involved in the experiment and burn the local meat plant. The Syndicate operative did provoke Doctor Larson's death, kill the sheriff's son and the farmer charged of inoculating the cattle, but was shot by the sheriff before he could destroy any more lives. The end of Doctor Larson's regular "vitamin shots" caused a severe flu-like ailment in his patients.

Emily Sim was one of many children produced from female abductees' ova (in this case Dana Scully's) following a different process than the one used for hybrid clones. These hybrids bore their biological mothers' genetic material and were born from drugged elderly women living in a retirement villa run by the Syndicate. The children were then adopted by unsuspecting human families. Such experiments appeared to be unsuccessful, since Emily was born with a blood disorder that threatened her life and she had to receive gene therapy from Prangen Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company situated in San Diego, California for her survival. This company was in part run by the Syndicate who had at least one hybrid doctor working there, Doctor Ernest Calderon. When Emily Sim was pulled from the program at Prangen, she became severely ill. Conventional medical treatment was of no help to her and she died at the age of three. X-rays showed her anatomy was different from a regular human and she exhibited hybrid features such as toxic green blood and the vulnerable spot on the back of the neck.

The Scientist Hybrids

A hybrid clone from the Gregor series.

One of the first series of viable hybrid clones working on the colonization project was called Gregor, the name given to each clone. These men were apparently cloned after two hybrids created by the colonists who had come to Earth wishing to have their part in colonization, but their actions were not sanctioned. The Gregor clones were scattered in different states and became influent in the American medical elite, being given strategic positions in abortion clinics where they could use aborted fetuses to pursue hybridization experiments. Five of these clones were doctors Dale Gayheart from New York City, Harvey Buchanon from Teaneck, New Jersey, Landon Prince from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Aaron Baker from Syracuse, New York and James Dickens from Washington, D.C. It would seem that the Gregors participated in the creation of a series of Samantha Mulder hybrid clones (one of them refers to one of the Gregors as her father), and this links these hybrids to the Syndicate, but the connection is not explained.

These women likewise worked in an abortion clinic in Rockville, Maryland, and conducted hybridization experiments. When the colonists realized these series of clones were leading the colonization project their own way, an alien bounty hunter was sent to eliminate them successfully. Knowing their lives were threatened, the Samantha Mulder clones expressed their wish to have the first Samantha created protected but saw the remainder as "dispensable." It is worth noting that their daily routine consisting of aborting human beings for access to “fetal tissue,” granting no particular value to the lives taken, these clones gave none to their own, apart from their use in the colonization project.

hybrid clone series similar to the Gregors and Samanthas were the Kurt Crawfords. This was at least one of the hybrids' name, but it is unclear whether they all used it or had different ones like the Gregor doctors had. A group of these men worked at the Lombard Research Facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where many women had been abducted and their ova taken for hybridization experiments. The Crawford hybrids' task consisted in producing more hybrid clones like themselves and Samantha Mulder, the child hybrids being used as a workforce on the Syndicate’s plantations. Nothing suggests they had ever collaborated with the Gregors and Samanthas destroyed by the bounty hunter, and their actions show they had a very different position when it came to colonization. Their laboratory included a vault where the ova were refrigerated, Dana Scully, Penny Northern and repeater Betsy Hagopian's among them; this bank provided the Crawfords with one half of the necessary raw materials used in hybrid production.

A hybrid clone named Ernest Calderon was employed by the Syndicate at Prangen Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, California where he treated sick hybrids who had been conceived with female abductees' ova, including Emily Sim. He also contributed in their creation. This consisted in inseminating the hybrid embryos into drugged elderly women who lived in a Syndicate-run retirement home. These unsuccessful experimental hybrids were treated with gene therapy in the hope that they would eventually recover and become viable for the colonization project. It would seem that Doctor Calderon was also part of a clone series, since an identical man is seen working for the Syndicate in a different context, in this case arresting renegade hybrid Jeremiah Smith from the Social Security Administration office in Washington, D.C. in 1996.

The Bureaucrat Hybrids

hat showed remarkable alien abilities is the Jeremiah Smith series. Not only could the Jeremiah Smiths heal rapidly from their wounds, they could also heal others from diverse wounds or illnesses and change their appearance like chameleons, taking on any they wished, like alien bounty hunters. Six of them worked as Social Security bureaucrats where they catalogued humans inoculated against smallpox, each vaccine comprising a unique protein used as a tag to identify the individual. The six hybrids used the name Jeremiah Smith but lived in different American cities, one of them living in Seattle, Washington, another in Cupertino, California, another in Chicago, Illinois, one in Miami, Florida, one in New York City and one in Washington, D.C. The Syndicate did not allow them to use their healing abilities on the American people and had simple tasks assigned to them in spite of their great gift. The information gathered on the smallpox eradication program was linked to the Syndicate’s virus experiments with bees on isolated plantations.

The Agrarian Workforce

Two hybrid workers from the Crawford series.

Certain experiments run in the colonization project involved agriculture, and hybrid clones were used as horticulturists and beekeepers to work on isolated farms where they kept ginseng and corn plantations as well as large apiaries in which bees carried viruses they had contracted collecting pollen from infected plants. The agrarian workforce hybrids wore no special protection as they were immune to these illnesses and had no fear of the bees flying around them daily. These manual tasks being relatively simple, the Syndicate employed child hybrids to do them, a series of boys and a series of girls living two by two (a boy and a girl) in nearby cottages. The fact that one of these plantations was situated in Alberta, Canada, points out to Syndicate experiments taking place all around the world. These hybrid children were autonomous and required no adult supervision.

Their brain’s Broca area was dysfunctional and they toiled in silence. They could, however, understand verbal and non-verbal language and respond with action or visual contact. It is unclear whether this characteristic was an accidental or intentional genetic defect, but working being their only purpose, their upbringing representing a "needless division of energy," this muteness was probably inflicted upon them at conception. Two individuals used in creating these serial ovotypes were Samantha Mulder and Kurt Crawford’s original. Ova taken from female abductees having been used in their production, Penny Northern, Dana Scully, Betsy Hagopian and Lottie Holloway can be included among their biological mothers. The mute agrarian worker is certainly a character created to denounce child labour, these young victims being unable to express or fully grasp the harm that is done to them.

The Hybrid Police

Much like Alien Bounty Hunters, the hybrid police was a series of shapeshifting hybrids produced by the Syndicate to keep things in order in the colonization project. It is possible that it was hybrids of this type who arrested Jeremiah Smith in 1996, but they are clearly involved in the Emily Sim incident, responsible for killing Marshall and Roberta Sim as well as Doctor Ernest Calderon who had failed at his duty and brought unwanted attention to the experiments. The hybrid police used alien stilettos to terminate fellow hybrids' lives, but also staged suicides to kill human beings who stood in the project's way. After killing Doctor Calderon, two hybrids from this unit took on his appearance to continue his work. Detective John Kresge, who investigated the Sims' deaths, was rendered sick from exposure to one of these hybrids' blood after shooting him in the chest.

Gibson Praise

Gibson Praise was a unique hybrid case in the X-Files investigations as he was naturally endowed with alien DNA which gave him an ability to read minds and communicate telepathically with Grey aliens. His particularly short stature was also evocative of a Grey's. Gibson Praise is understood as a "missing link" revealing a common origin between humans and aliens. The Syndicate soon targeted the boy and attempted to kill him because of the evidence of alien life his existence pointed to, but Praise read the shooter's mind and managed to avoid the bullet. He was then kidnapped by the Syndicate who had his skull opened up for analysis. He escaped and found refuge with Agent Scully who brought him to a hospital where he was taken again and eventually found himself trapped with a long-clawed alien at Rolling Hills Nuclear Power Plant in Arizona. His escape is not explained, but we meet Gibson Praise a few years later in the Arizona desert where he attends a school for deaf children. He later takes Fox Mulder in when the man goes into hiding as he feels his life is threatened. The boy also testifies at the agent's trial when Mulder is arrested and falsely accused of murder, identifying the Toothpick Man as a supersoldier.

Cassandra Spender

In 1999, Cassandra Spender, the Cigarette-Smoking Man's ex-wife, was the first gene therapy hybrid to be created successfully after numerous abductions and experiments. This achievement meant colonization could begin, and the Syndicate, along with their family members, were given a meeting point at El Rico Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. where they had first concluded the alliance with the colonists. However, instead of colonists, a group of faceless aliens came forth and burned the group alive. Spender and the entire gathering of high-ranking Syndicate members were all killed, except for the Cigarette-Smoking Man who managed to drive away with Diana Fowley and avoid the attack.

The colonization project as led by the Syndicate was thus derailed and the hybridization experiments abandoned. Alien colonization would continue in the form of genetically-engineered supersoldiers made using human abductees.

The Resistance Movement

Some hybrid clones became opposed to the colonization project, seemingly endowed with a sense of ethics not found in others. Aware of the pain caused by the abductions, the tests and the coming hegemony, one of the Jeremiah Smiths and the Crawford hybrids chose to disobey Syndicate orders and help the project's victims. The first one to act was Jeremiah Smith (the one from WashingtonD.C.). He healed several people wounded in a shooting at a restaurant, as well as the Cigarette-Smoking Man after having confronted him and revealed he had lung cancer. Smith then took agent Fox Mulder to an Alberta plantation to expose the Syndicate and alien colonists' preliminary experiments with smallpox to eventually spread the black oil virus using infected bees. He also allowed the agent to meet a series of his sister's young clones, denouncing the Syndicate’s use of hybrid children as slaves for the project.

One of the Crawford hybrids helping Fox Mulder with his investigation.

Agents Mulder and Scully met Kurt Crawford when it was discovered that Scully had developed cancer following her abduction, as many Pennsylvania women had before her. This hybrid clone had joined the female abductees' MUFON support group and formed a strong bond with them. The Crawford hybrids were skilful hackers and would enter the Syndicate's research facility databases to obtain the women's medical files in an attempt to find a cure and save them. The first Crawford met by the agents was killed by the Grey-Haired Man. This bold hybrid was most likely the first to take a stand and reach out to the female abductees; the Syndicate singled him out, not suspecting the whole series was involved. Agent Mulder only understood these hybrids’ true identity when he came upon the group at the Lombard Research Facility where they continued to work. The men explained what had made the women sick and expressed their intention to subvert the colonization project as an inside job, possibly with the help of the laboratory's gestating clones. The Crawford hybrids considered the abducted women their mothers since their ova had been used in their creation. Mulder was taken to the ova storage vault and allowed to leave with a sample from his partner’s. These ova were later used by agent Scully in her attempt to conceive a child via in vitro fertilization.

Complicity between Jeremiah Smith and the Crawford hybrids probably existed since the Crawfords knew about agent Mulder’s visit to the Alberta farm where he had met young clones from their series. They had possibly heard of the incident from Jeremiah Smith who had managed to escape from the bounty hunter pursuing him.

A few years later, after Syndicate members were assassinated in a violent intervention by alien rebels, the colonists initiated the supersoldier project using abductees they transformed into indestructible men and women. Aware of this plan, Jeremiah Smith gathered the abductees he could find and healed them before they underwent the metamorphosis that would make them mankind’s enemies. Smith declared he was the only one helping these victims, indicating he was either the last of his series, the rest having been eliminated by the Syndicate or bounty hunters, or that he was the Smith series’ only member in the resistance movement. Jeremiah Smith was taken by bounty hunters shortly after this, and most likely killed. What became of the Crawford hybrids remains unknown.

Gestation Period

It would seem that hybrid clones can reach maturity much faster than a human being because of their alien DNA and the amniotic fluid they grow in. Grey aliens born of a human host as conceived via black oil infection are fully formed in their host in a matter of days, emerge as ferocious long-clawed aliens for a few more days until they shed their skin and become a mature Grey. If hybrids' gestation and maturation period was similar to that of a human being, the Jeremiah Smith clones, who are the oldest hybrids, would have been created around the 1930's, which is long before any alliance was made between the Syndicate and the colonists. Gestating child hybrids of about 10 years of age in human years can be seen at the Lombard Research Facility in 1997, which indicates they grow and remain in their amniotic fluid until they have reached the desired age for the task assigned to them. It is possible that the Syndicate used child hybrids for manual tasks because they are available to work earlier than an adult hybrid who takes longer to gestate.

Family and Relationships

Hybrid clones do not have parents or relatives the way human beings have since they are conceived in vitro and grown in laboratories, but they seem to treat each other as family as well as colleagues; clones from the same series behave as siblings and consider older clones their parent figures. One of the adult Samantha Mulder clones refers to an older Gregor clone as her father.

Hybrids are called "drones" on several occasions, mere workers not meant to enjoy life or have the rights of a regular citizen by Syndicate standards; Jeremiah Smith explains about hybrid children that parenting would be a waste of their energy, and so they are made to be autonomous. Relationships with the human population seem limited outside of work obligations.

The only series that showed a marked interest in knowing their biological parents was the Kurt Crawford series from Pennsylvania who socialized with the female abductees whose ova were harvested for their conception (one of them did for sure, but being identical, they could easily pass off as the same). We do not know whether these ladies knew the young men were their sons and what they were exactly, but the Crawford hybrids did call the abductees their mothers.

We do not know whether hybrid clones can marry and reproduce, but none of them is seen living in this context. Perhaps hybridization makes them infertile by definition, as it is seen in nature. The Gregors and Samanthas' colonizing efforts relying solely on cloning, this would probably be the only way hybrids can multiply.